


Try To Make This Life My Own

by lunarknightz



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarknightz/pseuds/lunarknightz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara Gordon is much more than  just Jim Gordon's daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try To Make This Life My Own

Barbara has nightmares for weeks.

She's not the only child in Gotham who has a hard time counting sheep when the lights go out. Psychiatrists and counselors of all sorts have their appointment slots full. Schools are holding seminars for parents and children alike. Everyone, in their own way is trying to deal with the havoc that the clown prince wrought.

The Joker is not who Barbara fears.

She knows all the statistical facts of what happened, she's a cop's kid. Barbara's seen more of the footage than her parents even know- she figured out how to disable the parental controls on her computer long ago- and she watched things during YouTube.

It's how she knew her father wasn't dead. Barbara watched that one obsessively, noticing that her father's chest was still moving as they wheeled him into the ambulance.

The Joker is dangerous, she knows, but he's locked up in Arkham now. The local news has been running a series of interviews with the psychiatrist assigned to him, Dr. Quinzell. The good doctor is somehow comforting as she talks about her analysis of her infamous patient.

The man in Barbara's dream only has half a face.

Most people don't in Gotham don't know that man. They know him as he was, as Harvey Dent, the crusading District Attorney, who was going to turn the city around.

To Barbara, he is a monster. In her mind she calls him Two-Face. His face was horrendous, but his visage is not what haunts her, but his actions. It is only by the grace of fate that she is still alive.

She hates coin tosses now.

Now people talk about Batman in hushed tones. Some used to see him as a hero, but now they blame him for death and destruction.

Barbara knows that the Batman is no villain. He is her hero.

 

______

 

She takes up Martial Arts after her parents divorce.

The house seems empty after her mother and brother leave. She could have gone with them, but Barbara couldn't bear the idea of her father being left alone. Work occupies most of his time, and often Barbara is left to with only the Internet and television to entertain her.

A studio opens up down the street from their apartment, as part of the Gotham Revitalization project. It offers several forms of defense, and Barbara tries them all, and advances quickly. She is by far the littlest and shortest of the group, but she is determined.

On the dark streets of Gotham, self-defense is a handy skill to have. Barbara Gordon will take care of herself.

______

 

Her career as Batgirl starts as a joke.

As teenagers go, Barbara Gordon was not that rebellious. She is a good student, who hangs with a nice crowd of kids and dresses respectably. As a part time job, she answers phones, brews coffee, and makes copies at the police station.

There is only one stumbling block in her relationship with her father. Barbara has her heart set on attending the Police Academy after she graduates from high school. She wants to be a detective on the force.

Her father tells her to forget it. She's too short, and the line of work is too dangerous. She should go to college and do something more flashy than walking a beat.

It's an ongoing argument that doesn't seem to have an end.

She is sixteen when her father invites her to attend the annual GCPD Masquerade Ball. Barbara is excited in spite of herself. The ball is held over at the ritziest country club in town- not in Gotham proper, but over near the newly rebuilt Wayne mansion, where the truly privileged live.

The public opinion of Batman has changed over the years. The populace no longer fears him. Some like him, some fear him. In a world where criminals seem to be more desperate for attention and riches, he is a necessity. It takes a freak to fight the freaks.

Her father has a partnership with Batman that he doesn't quite understand. Sometimes, he seems frustrated that the uniformed force can't turn the city around themselves. Yet Commissioner Gordon values the vigilante's help and seems to respect the Batman.

The costume stores don't have what she is looking for, so Barbara sews her own. (She didn't take Home-Ec in vain).

Barbara hopes to tease her father, maybe anger him a little for dressing like his "secret" pal. Maybe he would see her in this costume and realize that he'd been underestimating his daughter all along. He wanted he to live a mediocre life, and Barbara just couldn't, or wouldn't settle for merely ordinary.

She never gets a chance to show her father her costume.

Killer Moth, the latest in a long line of costumed crooks, breaks up the party. He's both crazy and stupid, trying to kidnap the most famous man in town, Bruce Wayne, when he is surrounded by about a hundred off duty police force members. Unfortunately, most of them are at least three sheets to the wind and no help at all.

People don't take the Killer Moth seriously. Later, people will know that he's a recent jailbreak from Blackgate prison, but when he's dressed in a cheap knockoff of an Ant Man costume on a fancy dance floor, he looks like a boy with a cheap gun. They underestimate him, and he takes down a few people with some tranquilizer darts before people realize what's going on.

Barbara isn't one to just stand by.

She runs up and pushes Bruce Wayne out of the way, and throws herself at the costumed crook. Her martial arts training comes in handy, and she finds herself punching and cart wheeling around the ballroom. At one point, she swings from the curtains, and lands a swift kick in the Killer Moth's gut.

He breaks one of the stained glass windows and flees out into the night.

Barbara follows, but loses him in the woods.

Batman finds her, standing tall and somehow seeming larger than he had at the ruins of that bombed out building years ago.

"I'll take it from here." He growls.

At that point, most people would let it go.

Not Barbara.

This is her rebirth, her first test in the line of fire. It will not be her last, though the Bat makes it clear that he is not looking for a sidekick.

Tonight, she takes flight.

She is no longer just Barbara Gordon. She is now Batgirl.

**Author's Note:**

> Some inspiration drawn from the excellent graphic novel, "Batgirl, Year One", written by Scott Beatty and Chuck Dixon, with greatest respect.


End file.
